


Next to Godliness

by JulyStorms



Series: Before Colors Broke into Shades [26]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 02:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3233207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulyStorms/pseuds/JulyStorms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say that cleanliness is next to godliness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Next to Godliness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sasha_BrausIsmyhero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sasha_BrausIsmyhero/gifts).



When Hange halts the day’s work, her squad turns to her, eyebrows cocked in surprise, mouths parting slightly as if they are ready to protest—as if she’s planning to dismiss them and continue to finish the experiments and the paperwork on her own.

She gives Moblit a smile; he looks the most concerned, as he always does, but her smile makes him frown.

“Squad Leader,” he starts to say as he takes a step toward her, but she shakes her head.

“It’s been a long day,” she says, “and we’re all tired and hungry.” She pulls her goggles off to wipe at her eyes with her sleeves; behind the lenses her face is sweating, and it makes it hard to see. She slides them back into place afterward, satisfied when it doesn’t hurt to blink. “And none of us need a shower more than me,” she tries to joke, but her attempt is met by solemn faces.

_Don’t worry about me_ , she wants to say, but can’t force the words past suddenly-stiff lips.

It’s true, though.

She bathes regularly, now, and eats her meals on time; she even goes to bed at a respectable hour.

Zoë Hange is the healthiest she’s been in years.

If anything, they should be relieved.

* * *

 

“You need to take better care of yourself.”

It’s not the first thing Levi ever says to her, but it’s one of the things he ends up saying most often.

She makes a bit of a grunting sound when he tries to interrupt her work one night. He’s still a fresh face in the Survey Corps, and her face is buried in a book.

As the sound of a plate sliding across her desk comes to her ears, she glances up. Levi’s face betrays nothing of what he thinks of her or her idea of work. “Not really hungry,” she tells him.

She learns to always tell him that. It almost becomes a habit.

“I don’t care,” is his response—unsurprising.

He waits for her to eat something.

Eventually, as the first few months pass, she figures out that all she has to do to get rid of him is take a few bites of food. He’ll leave after he’s seen it, satisfied that he’s managed to get her to eat something.

But she kind of likes his company for some reason, and as he forms a habit of coming to her with food, she makes a habit of taking her time, of pulling the spoon toward her mouth only to put it back on the plate so that she can grab another book or two from the shelf beside her desk.

It only takes a few more months before Levi sort-of catches on, before he’s bringing a book to read or his gear to polish so that he can stay busy while he waits for her to find time to eat.

It becomes routine: a late pseudo-dinner with Levi.

* * *

 

Other things become habitual between them, too—like the way Levi speaks to her. They start out somewhat cordial: her enthusiasm is banked by his unwillingness to associate with anyone overmuch, but he opens up over time in his own way.

“If you want to sleep cuddled up to a titan, I guess that’s your business.”

“Filthy as usual, I see.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed if you don’t learn how to take care of yourself, four-eyes.”

She doesn’t mind, because it’s just Levi. He’s always been a bit odd, she thinks—a bit of a loner. He’s always been _sad_ in his way, not unlike the rest of them, but not exactly _like_ them, either. Hange accepts that about Levi: accepts his stupid nicknames, accepts his scowling face and the dark circles under his eyes that never seem to go away, accepts his criticism of her lifestyle because, like the lines on his face, they’re a part of him, and she knows better than anyone that people don’t fit into molds—can’t be solidly defined like inanimate objects.

“If I didn’t know better,” she says one night when he rolls his eyes at her disheveled state, “I’d think you were worried about me.”

“Well, there’s a hell of a lot to worry about when it comes to you.”

“Do I look like I’m dying or something?” she asks.

His nose crinkles up, and it transforms his entire face into something almost horrible. Hange wonders if it’s strange that she finds the expression amusing—it’s cute, in an ugly sort of way.

“Spit it out, Levi.”

“You smell like shit.”

“Any specific kind of shit? I’m keeping a log.”

“Titan shit,” he says without hesitation, and before she can open her mouth to tell him how that doesn’t even make sense, he adds: “Like a titan grew an asshole just to be able to shit you out.”

“Noted,” she grins, and pretends to write it down.

* * *

 

Only when the comments stop does Hange bother to really think about them.

Only when Levi dies do the comments stop.

And the late-dinners.

And the eye-rolling, the horrid nicknames, the sarcasm.

The threats of bathing her if she doesn’t bathe herself.

* * *

 

There are sounds that she misses immediately.

The squeak of her lab door as he opened it in his particular way (with his elbow, really, to avoid touching weird things).

The sound of a plate sliding against her wooden desk.

The soft little sigh that he always made when he sat in the chair she kept by her desk—for him, though she never told him. He seemed to understand that she had cleared the books off of it for him.

* * *

 

“You need to take better care of yourself,” he tells her the night before he dies.

She’s not really listening: her face is buried in a map and she’s trying to remember sixteen things at once.

“Hey—stupid,” he says, pulling hard on her ponytail.

“What!”

“Take a bath already!”

* * *

 

In the end, she’s not sure what she misses most. She thinks that someone like Mike would miss the smell of another person, but she can’t remember what Levi smelled like. He always just smelled _clean_. Maybe because of that, Hange becomes overly aware of what she smells like.

Like shit, really.

She sweats a lot. She never really noticed before. But now she can’t stop noticing.

* * *

 

Levi doesn’t die heroically. He just dies—like everyone else in the Survey Corps. His body is brought back to HQ and burned. Hange holds no real attachment to Levi’s body; it’s too-pale, and in the summer heat it bloats before it begins to decay.

She supposes the shell looks like him, but it’s more of a poor imitation in her mind, because it’s not following her around shoving food at her and telling her that she needs to bathe because she smells like shit.

It just lays there in the back of a wagon, bouncing with every jolt: the hair is limp, the skin cold, the lips stiff.

She doesn’t watch it burn.

* * *

 

Erwin does, though. He always watches the bodies burn. Sometimes Hange worries about Erwin; he takes everything on his own shoulders and always blames himself, though he never admits it to anyone.

She knows, though, because she’s been around long enough to know.

“Are you all right?” a voice asks from the doorway.

It’s Nanaba standing there. Alone.

Hange looks down at the book in front of her, then back to Nanaba, whose eyebrows are knitting together as if she has a reason to be concerned. “I’m all right,” she says.

“You’re sure?”

Hange nods; it’s all she really trusts herself to do.

Nanaba chews on her lower lip for a moment, but says, “Okay,” so softly that Hange’s not sure at first that she heard it. “If you need anything—you know you can—“

Nanaba doesn’t need to finish her sentence.

Even so, she adds, before she leaves, her fingers clenched too-tight around the doorframe: “It wasn’t your fault. In case you needed to hear it.”

And then she’s gone, boots loud against the floor in the corridor.

Even though Hange doesn’t blame herself, she feels relief.

It’s stupid how guilt works in the Survey Corps.

She stops Nanaba at the end of the hall, touches her elbow.

Hange’s words are shaky in a way that only another veteran will notice: “Would you ask Mike to tell Erwin that? I think he needs to hear it.”

Nanaba’s smile isn’t pitying, but it isn’t genuine, either. “Yeah,” she says.

It isn’t until Hange is back in her own room that she realizes that Nanaba’s smile was pained.

* * *

 

Hange does a good job of being all right.

She’s an all-right expert, after all.

All of the veterans are, it seems. Some of them cry alone in their rooms, and others drown their confusion in alcohol, but Hange does neither: she just keeps moving forward because the world won’t right itself.

Because titans won’t just disappear on their own.

Because she doesn’t know what else to do but lather, rinse, repeat.

* * *

 

She smells better. Like Levi, Mike says: she smells like Levi.

It’s because of the soap.

She hadn’t been able to stand the thought of the soap going to waste. It’s hers, now.

* * *

 

“Look, four-eyes,” Levi says one day, hands in Hange’s hair as he scrubs her scalp.

“I can’t see much of anything considering the copious amount of soap that’s falling into my face,” she says, “but I think you’re peeling the skin right off my head.”

“Don’t be stupid. You’re gross. It’s been a week.”

“Week and a half,” she says. “Or two.” She pauses. “I think.” She really can’t remember how long it’s been. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Use that brain of yours,” he says, and even though she can’t see him, she can imagine that his nose is crinkled up in that ugly-cute way she likes.

“I’m using it. It’s telling me that you’re being unnecessarily rough on my poor scalp.”

“If you hadn’t let the grease build up for days, then I wouldn’t have to be. You complain too fucking much; next time I’m just going to knock you out and splash some water on your stupid face.”

“And I suppose, as Humanity’s Strongest, you know best about such things?”

He pauses, his short nails digging into her skin a little. “Yes,” he says after a moment. “Haven’t you heard that stupid phrase: cleanliness is next to godliness? Well.”

It takes her a moment to realize it’s a joke, but when she does, she tips her head back to grin up at him, blinking through the soap that tries to slide into her eyes. “Nice,” tells him. “That’s almost clever. So the fact that you stay clean is the secret to your skill with the 3DMG? Interesting. Don’t tell Erwin; he’ll make us all take baths daily.”

He leans down without a word until his nose is touching hers. “Don’t tempt me,” he says after a pause, and pushes on the back of her head so that he can finish with her hair.

* * *

 

It takes a few months for the Survey Corps to pull together enough to go on another expedition outside the walls after their best soldier dies.

Humanity’s Strongest.

A title that had never felt necessary to give to anyone before Levi.

The usual excitement is still there. Hange wants to know more— _needs_ to know more. How else will she help save the world but with knowledge? And how can she gain knowledge but with courage and strength?

Her fighting style doesn’t change much, but it’s noticeable to Erwin. Her cuts are more assured, her use of the 3DMG controlled.

He comments on it briefly: “You’ve changed.”

She doesn’t think she has.

She just feels stronger now—like nothing can touch her.

* * *

 

When Nifa brings Hange a stack of books as part of their latest research project, she can’t find a place on the desk to set them, and so puts them in the chair that still sits close by.

Before Hange realizes what she’s doing, she’s picking the books up again, shaking her head.

She’s saying, “No, no, not there.”

And when Nifa says, “Why not, Squad Leader?” Hange only has one answer:

“He won’t like that.”

The books are on a paper-covered corner of the desk before Hange realizes what it is she’s said, and by then Nifa’s expression has crumpled.

“Hah…” Hange can’t make a joke about it. She tries, but nothing comes to mind. For a second, she had forgotten—and there wasn’t anything funny about that.

She forces her fingers to let go of the books, to leave them on the desk, and she sits down again in her own chair. Sits down and tries not to look at the stupid empty chair that is supposed to be reserved for Levi.

She always keeps it clean so that he has a place to sit when he brings her dinner.

It doesn’t need to stay clean anymore.

But she can’t bring herself to let anything else sit there, either.

“It’s really—” Hange says, taking off her glasses and wiping at her eyes. “It’s hot, isn’t it? I’m just—I can’t stop sweating.”

Without a word, Nifa pulls a delicate little lace handkerchief out of her pocket and holds it out.

Without a word, Hange accepts it.

* * *

 

Even though she’s hungry, Hange can’t go to the mess hall until she’s cleaned herself up. She’s not sure why.

Maybe it’s because she’s aware of the fact that the weather, while cooler than it has been in recent weeks, is still warm—and she’s been sweating all day.

So she goes to the women’s washrooms and she takes the time to draw a bath. The showers are too cold and while they’ll be a temporary help, she won’t feel clean when it’s over.

She needs to feel clean.

* * *

 

The others worry about her too much.

There’s no real reason to worry.

She’s all right.

She’s still the same as always.

Zoë Hange: titan researcher, plant lover, hard-working squad leader of the Survey Corps.

She’s just cleaner now, is all.

And if the dirt can’t touch her, well…nothing can.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: “Levi dies and Hange has to pick up the pieces.”
> 
> My fingers slipped on the keyboard and wrote this. True story. Requested by [ApparentlyNobody](http://apparentlynobody.tumblr.com) on Tumblr/Sasha_Brausismyhero here on AO3.


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